(Portland, ME)

For today’s Friday Favorite I bring you art on the go, or more accurately, the Art-o-Mat! I stumbled across this site the other day and thought it was extremely fun.

(Winston-Salem, NC)

In 1997 artist Clark Whittington converted an old cigarette machine into the first art-o-mat for a show he was doing. It sold his black and white photographs for $1 apiece. It was such a hit that the idea just took off.

(Lambertville, NJ)

Today there are 82 active art-o-mat locations throughout the United States. There is even one located in good old Kansas City at the Pi Gallery:

(Kansas City, MO)

Currently the group Artists in Cellophane sponsers the art-o-mat machines and they’re mission “is based on the concept of taking art and repackaging it to make it part of our daily lives. The mission of A.I.C. is to encourage art consumption by combining the worlds of art and commerce in an innovative form. A.I.C believes that art should be progressive, yet personal and approachable. What better way to do this, than with a heavy cold steel machine?”

(Orlando, FL)

Each art-o-mat machine features small works from various artists. There are approximately 400 artists from various countries around the world who have art featured in the art-o-mat machines.

(Boise, Idaho)

There are many things that excite me about the concept. One is how the machines themselves are fun, funky art as you can see by the many examples that I have overburdened your poor computers with. I’d love to have some of these in my house just because of how cool they look.

(University Park, IL)

The next thing is the art itself. There are several examples of artists work on the “artists” page of the website. I also included some examples of the ones I thought were fun towards the end of this post.

(Northampton, MA)

The art is small (cigarette package size) but appeals to me because alot of it is the kind of found art/collage work that I was discussing in last week’s Friday Favorite. I love the advertising aspect of it as well. The artists are encouraged to put contact information in their packages and I think it would be a fun way to get your name and website out there if you were an artist wanting to have your work exposed to more people.

(Cincinatti, OH)

You also don’t have to be some kind of super-artist to have your work featured in an art-o-mat machine. There are guidelines here that explain how anyone can submit their work for placement in the machines. This isn’t a big money making venture (they charge $5 for the art in machines and you get $2.50 of that) but it would be a really fun thing to do, again, to get your work out there.

(Miami, FL)

Again the whole concept just excited me because I love fun, funky art and I love finding creative new ways that people use to get art exposed to people. The recycling of these old cigarette machines is also a really fun thing to do (there are many more to see on the site here). I remember these old machines being in bowling alleys, etc. when I was a kid so there is a nostalgia factor there as well. Below you will find examples of some of the artists’ work that I enjoy. You will find these and more in that artists link on the art-o-mat site.

Well that’s it folks, this was a little different for a Friday Favorite but I hope you get a kick out of the cool re-tooled cigarette machines and the very fun art vending concept. Have a wonderful weekend everyone!